Chilliwack requests money to implement SmartTool

Chilliwack district is asking the province for financial help to measure carbon offsets, the Chilliwack Times reports.

“It insists we use the SmartTool (but) it is not giving us any money to do it,” trustee Silvia Dyck is quoted as saying, in reference to the software that government wants public-sector organizations to use in calculating their carbon emissions.

The government is charging school districts 82 cents per student to use the software, which would add up to about $10,000 in Chilliwack, says the story by Times reporter Mike Chouinard. Once carbon emissions have been tallied, the district will need to purchase carbon offsets worth about $11 per student.

It’s no surprise that some school trustees are not happy with being required to buy technology for a program that the provincial government will require but will not fund, the story says. As Dyck said, some school districts are saying no to the SMARTTool, and she cited the issue as another example of the “erosion” of funding for public education in the province.

At a meeting last month, the board voted 6-1 to ask the Education Ministry for funding to purchase the SmartTool technology, despitean earlier signal from Education Minister Margaret MacDiarmid that such help is unlikely.

Chilliwackand other school districts signed a Climate Action Charter with government last spring in order to receive refunds of carbon taxes paid on fuel. In return, they must become carbon neutral by next year through the purchase of carbon offsets. (Read a ministry Q-and-A here.)

Chilliwack is one of several boards concerned about SmartTool. North Vancouver voted last month not to use it, although trustees said at the time they will likely be ordered to do so.

Here’s some background about SmartTool from my colleague in Victoria, Jonathan Fowlie: It was developed by the Ministry of Labour and Citizen’s Services for use by school boards, health authorities and other public-sector organizations in tracking carbon emissions from vehicles, buildings and other operations. Sister software, called SmartTech, will be used by government to track employee travel.

Both were developed by government and private contractors, starting in 2007. At the time, B.C. was the only jurisdiction in North America doing this type of tracking so it was not possible to buy similar software off the shelf, government says.

School boards, hospitals, etc. need to start reporting carbon emissions in January 2010. Municipalities aren’t required to be carbon neutral until 2012.

Regulations allow government to specify the “form and content” of emissions reporting, which suggests it can order public-sector organizations to use the software. Organizations are being charged for use of the software to cover the cost of developing and maintaining the system. Here’s the annual breakdown of costs:

The program is web-based. A report from the Vancouver school district says “once the data is uploaded by the user on building energy, fleet fuel and paper consumption, SmartTool calculates the carbon foot-print and produces a number of graphs, tables and reports for the user.” That information allows users to identify operations with a high-carbon footprint and take action to reduce carbon emissions.

Vancouver, in considering the matter, contacted other boards and found that some have signed-off on the software while others are undecided.

MacDiarmid has already indicated there will be no additional funding for SmartTool. She told the Tri-City News that districts have known for two years that they would have to start calculating carbon emissions in 2010 and could have used carbon-tax refunds to pay for efficiencies that will save money in the long term.

“All 60 B.C. school districts signed on to the Climate Action Charter,” she stated in an email to the newspaper. “In return for meeting our carbon reduction targets, boards are being refunded the cost of the carbon tax.

“About $800,000 has already been distributed to school districts and by the spring of 2011, about $7 million in carbon tax revenues will be returned to bards – revenues that will help pay for energy upgrades and help pay for carbon offsets if they are needed.”

MacDiarmid said no extra money will be provided to help districts pay for costs associated with using a new carbon emission calculator called SMARTTool but board officials will be shown how to use the tool, which measures carbon emissions from electrical, natural gas and fuel, the story says.